Page 3 of A Language of Dragons

THE LIbrARY IS LOCATED IN the University of London’s north tower. Every doorway and window is shrouded in shadow and the grand iron gates stand tall and imposing in the darkness. But I know they’re just for show. I slip silently over the wall, my leather shoes sinking softly into the grass. The tower’s oak doors are bolted closed so I creep round the side of the building to a small window illuminated by a streetlamp. I run a finger along the edges of the windowpane. Dad’s penknife is cold and heavy in my pocket. I flick it open and place the tip in the groove between the window frame and the glass.

I’ve seen Dad do this before, when Ursa locked herself in the garden shed in protest against starting school. He lifted her out and explained to her that an education would ensure her a good profession that would allow her to stay with the family forever.

The resistance softens as the blade meets the rubber and I begin to cut, dragging the knife down and round the pane of glass. Dad is gentler with Ursa than he used to be with me. I was six when I exchanged my class pass with Vera Malloy from the Third Class quarter across the square. We did it as a joke, but it wasn’t funny when a Guardian motorcar pulled up and Vera fled, my pass still round her neck.

The Guardian demanded to know what I, Vera Malloy, was doing in a Second Class quarter without an authorisation badge. My entire body went cold with dread, but instead of arresting me the Guardian walked me to Vera’s quarter and left me in a street I didn’t know. So I screamed at him in Wyrmerian, and then in several other dragon tongues, asking how I could speak so many if I attended a Third Class school?

Your languages saved you, Vivien, and they’ll save you again , Dad told me.

But he forbade me from playing out in the street after that.

The pane of glass wobbles as I dig my blade beneath it, then comes free. I set it gently on the ground, stick my hand through the gap and lift the handle on the inside. The window swings open and I heave myself through, scuffing my shoes on the wall in the process. In all my childhood fantasies about the University of London, I never pictured myself breaking into it.

I’m standing behind the receptionist’s desk in a small, book-lined nook of the library. I edge my way through the dark, across the worn floorboards to the entrance hall until I find the lift, then step in and close the cage doors. I pull the crank all the way to the left. As the lift begins to rise, I catch flashes of the different floors through the tiny window. It stops with a shudder at the top and I exit at the bottom of the spiral staircase. I’ve been up here once before, as a dare.

Bet you don’t have it in you to go and see that dragon for yourself , Marquis had said.

I had climbed the staircase into the dragon’s prison, revelling in my cousin’s dismay, before darting back down. Just to prove that I could. Now, with my hand skimming the curved bannister, I climb again.

A breeze chills the air and I shiver as I step into the circular room. My eyes dart immediately to the line of bookcases I saw the dragon sprawled across last time, seeking out its shape in the light of the moon. But there’s nothing there. A set of steps lead up on to a balcony that allows access to the highest bookshelves. I wonder what sort of books they hold – they can’t be of much importance if they’ve been left up here.

A sweet, rotting smell turns my stomach. I take a step forward and something crunches underfoot. It’s the white skull of a small mammal, a cat perhaps. It must have wandered up here in search of mice only to meet its own gory end. Either that or the maintenance workers have started feeding their pets to the dragon.

Anticipation rises in my stomach. I have to do this. I have no other choice. The thought makes me feel braver. But where is the dragon?

I walk through the archway ahead. It leads into a second room, larger than the first. I step on to the carpet and it crackles beneath my shoes. It’s not a carpet at all. It’s a huge shed dragon skin, pale and papery. To the right is an abandoned desk splattered in bird droppings and to the left a faded sign.

KNOWLEDGE REQUESTS, it reads.

Older students have told me that the library dragon is a criminal who rebelled against the creation of the Peace Agreement because it refused to be governed by human laws. So it was sent here to serve humans – the worst punishment that could be inflicted on its kind. Its sentence was to provide the scholars with relevant knowledge or history. After all, a creature that has lived for centuries is a hundred times more informative than any book. But the decision backfired when the dragon almost killed a student. I suppose that now it will simply be left here until it dies.

I stare up into the eaves of the tower, but nothing moves except for a nesting pigeon. A gust of wind hits my face as I turn the corner. The wall has been knocked through, opening on to the outer terraces of the tower like a gaping wound made of limestone and jagged metal. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck lift. It’s as if the air has been sucked out of the room. Standing with its back to me, its body spanning the whole space, is the dragon.

It is staring out across the parapet walls that overlook the campus below and the city beyond. Its spike-encrusted tail is curled round its body like a cat’s and its skin, a deep pink colour, is covered in scales that glitter like glass in the moonlight. It’s the biggest, most terrifying dragon I’ve ever seen.

On a research trip with Mama I barely remember, I once slept among friendly wyverns, their bodies giving off heat like snoring suns. During the zeppelin air raids of the Great War, I watched dragons guard their posts on Fitzroy Square, queue in Blackfriars to be armoured, deflect bombs above Westminster. But this is something else entirely. This is a criminal dragon.

What the hell was I thinking? I back away slowly, but my foot meets a lump of stone.

Shit.

I wince as the stone skitters across the ground. My heart thumps loudly in my chest. The dragon’s tail twitches. How long has it known I’m here?

At least you can’t run away now.

I clear my throat and try to keep my voice steady.

‘Are you the library dragon?’ I sound like a frightened child.

The dragon lets out a purr. ‘Which other dragon would I be?’

It’s speaking English with a Slavic accent – is it Bulgarian? This really is the worst idea I’ve ever had.

I swallow. ‘I was wondering—’

‘I haven’t taken knowledge requests since 1903.’

Its voice is hoarse yet soft, and undoubtedly female. The dragon turns suddenly, swinging her huge head towards me. Her face is covered in spikes, too, and there are white rings round her eyes.

‘I’m not here for a knowledge request,’ I say quickly.

She lets out a growl that vibrates beneath my feet. ‘Well, that is fortunate,’ she says. ‘I would have sliced your tongue from your mouth if you were.’

I feel my insides shrink. ‘Is that what you did to the last student who came up here?’

‘Alas, I do not recall.’

‘Dragon memory is capable of recalling over ten times the information retained in a human brain,’ I say. ‘And the humans here seem to remember quite well.’

Do I have a death wish? The dragon’s tail moves as she stares at me with eyes like bright amber globes. Above her giant talons are several rows of silky black feathers. She’s beautiful, but there are sores up her legs and a greyish tinge to her skin.

‘You’re a prisoner,’ I say, pointing to the tiny silver box I know is attached to the space between the dragon’s wings.

It’s a detonator, fused to the creature’s skin and filled with an explosive.

‘How observant,’ the dragon replies.

‘Are you a Bulgarian dragon?’ I remember Marquis’s sketches of the different species. ‘A Bolgorith?’

‘So what if I am?’

‘ Moyava maìka izlydane e v Bolgor ,’ I say in Slavidraneishá.

My mother is from Bulgaria .

‘The child speaks dragon tongue.’

A thrill shoots through me. She understood what I said. For the first time in my life, I’m speaking Dragonese with an actual dragon.

‘I speak Slavidraneishá, Wyrmerian, Harpentesa, Drageoir, Draecksum and a little Komodonese. And some human languages, obviously.’

I push my hair behind my ears and take a deep breath.

‘What’s your name?’

The dragon lets out a deep sigh.

‘I’m Vivien,’ I offer.

‘I am Chumana.’

‘Snake Maiden?’ I say. ‘That’s what it means in English, doesn’t it?’

‘What do you want, human girl?’

I brace myself. This conversation could go either way. Chumana has tried to kill a student once before – who’s to say she won’t do it again?

‘I’ve come to offer you a deal,’ I say.

Chumana makes a noise that can only be a laugh.

‘What kind of deal could a human girl possibly offer a criminal dragon?’

I hesitate, but only for a second. ‘Escape,’ I say. ‘Freedom. Revenge.’

‘You are delusional,’ Chumana breathes, turning away.

‘I can get that detonator off you!’ I say. ‘After that, you could simply fly away. But first …’ I pause. ‘First, I need you to burn Prime Minister Wyvernmire’s office to the ground.’

The dragon turns back to look at me. ‘You require me to serve you?’

‘No!’ I scowl. ‘I told you, we’d be making a deal. Between equals.’

Chumana laughs again and I feel my face go hot.

‘You would dare make a deal with a dragon?’

I think of Marquis’s horrified face, of Ursa’s cries, of my mother left alone with those Guardians.

‘I would.’

‘Do you know what will happen if you break it?’

Chumana’s voice is as seductive as silk on bare skin.

‘You’ll kill me,’ I say simply.

The criminal dragon studies me, her amber eyes darkening.

‘Burn Wyvernmire’s office to the ground?’ she hisses. ‘It would be my pleasure.’

My heart leaps out of my chest and back in again, but I nod, trying to look calm.

‘The detonator,’ I say, jerking my head in the direction of Chumana’s wings.

Marquis has told me about dragon detonators and how they were somehow negotiated into the Peace Agreement for use on criminal dragons only. The silver box is no bigger than my hand, but packed with – if I remember correctly – mercury fulminate crystals.

‘Do you have a blade, human girl?’ says Chumana. ‘We both know we cannot count on your teeth.’

I bite back a smile. So dragons do humour as well as sarcasm? I take out Dad’s penknife and Chumana snorts through her snout.

‘That is no match for my hide,’ she says. She lifts a claw in the direction of the library. ‘Above the desk.’

I go back inside and Chumana follows, her long tail trailing behind like a serpent. Mounted on the wall above the desk is a sword encased in a glass frame. I climb on to the desk to remove the heavy case from the wall, then set it down on the floor. Chumana watches, a puff of smoke rising from her nostrils.

‘Why would they leave this here with a prisoner?’ I ask as I search the desk drawers for something heavy.

‘Do you know of any human willing to cut a dangerous explosive from the body of a murderous dragon?’ says Chumana.

I shrug – I bet the Third Class girl I saw killed at the protest would be.

Except her kind rarely get anywhere near university libraries.

My hand touches something round and cold and I pull a paperweight out of a drawer. I throw it down on to the glass case, smashing it to pieces. Then I carefully pull the sword out. It’s heavy and definitely real. The hilt is slightly rusted, but the blade razor-sharp.

‘Right,’ I say, turning round. Chumana is standing between two bookcases, waiting.

‘How do you want to do this?’

‘You will have to climb,’ she says.

I nod, trying to still my shaking hands. I walk round Chumana’s left side, close enough to see the callouses on her skin.

‘I’ll need some light,’ I say from behind her. ‘I don’t suppose you could … set something on fire?’

‘No,’ the dragon growls. ‘Not unless you want us both to explode.’

‘I see,’ I say weakly. ‘I’ll light the lamps, then.’

I light the old gas lamps on the wall, then stare up at Chumana’s body. Her wings shiver on each side of her back, giant leathery things that I know will span the space of the whole room when unfolded. Dome-shaped scales run up the length of her spine.

I grip the sword tighter in one hand. ‘So I’ll just—’

‘Get on with it.’

I place a foot at the base of Chumana’s tail.

Oh, Marquis, if you could see me now.

The climbing is easier than I expected. Chumana’s scales provide holds for my hands and feet – it’s somewhat similar to ascending a breathing cliff. My fingertips brush over the skin between the scales and it’s warm, almost hot, to touch. Chumana smells of animal and dragonsmoke and old books.

I stop at the top of her back, my knees on either side of her spine. The detonator is strategically placed at the base of her wings and surrounded by thick scar tissue. How does it feel to have a piece of metal melted into your skin? Does it hurt less for dragons, whose body temperature is already so high? I hope so.

‘Chumana,’ I say suddenly. ‘How does this detonator work?’

She shifts ever so slightly and I grab hold of her wing so as not to fall off.

‘You must take care,’ Chumana says. ‘The crystals in the detonator are sensitive to shock, as well as heat. Once you’ve removed it, do not drop it.’

I feel my heart race. So I could potentially be about to kill us both?

‘But how does it work?’ I repeat. ‘How has it stopped you from escaping all this time?’

‘Friction,’ the dragon growls. ‘If I were to fly, the movement of my wings would set the detonator off. And if that were to fail, the elevation of my body heat caused by my increased heart rate would react with the crystals.’ Chumana growls. ‘It is an ingenious human invention.’

I stare at the lethal silver box, trying to wrap my mind round the cruelty of binding a dragon’s innate need to fly with its certain death.

‘Are you ready?’ I ask and Chumana grunts.

I’ve never used a sword before. I run a finger along the scar tissue. What if I cut too deep and Chumana bleeds out? Then I laugh at myself. As if I, Viv Featherswallow, am capable of accidentally killing a dragon.

I push myself on to my knees and hold the hilt of the sword in both hands. Then I angle the length of the blade against the skin and press hard. Red blood spills from the cut. Chumana doesn’t move. I slice deeper. Once I feel the edge of the box against the blade, I slice down beneath it, cutting through the flesh like a knife through butter. Chumana lets out a loud hiss as I catch the bloody box in my left hand.

Do not drop it.

I fling the blade to the floor and slide down Chumana’s back slowly, my eyes never leaving the detonator. On the desk chair is a soft, moth-bitten cushion and I set the detonator on top of it carefully. I breathe and turn towards Chumana with a smug smile. Her eyes open and settle on me. I wait. I have just freed a criminal dragon who protested the Peace Agreement held between my species and her own. What’s to say she’ll keep her end of the deal?

‘Why do you wish to burn Wyvernmire’s office?’

‘It contains evidence that my parents are rebels,’ I reply. ‘I need it gone.’

The whiskers on Chumana’s snout twitch. She bows her head.

‘Then consider it gone, human girl.’

Her wings unfold suddenly, knocking bookcases over like dominoes. The edges are tipped with spikes and as strong as bone, but the membrane looks paper-thin and feather-light.

‘Chumana,’ I say suddenly. ‘What’s your maxim?’

If she hears me, she doesn’t show it. I run behind her as she crashes out on to the terrace and, without warning, jolts forward and up into the air. Her talons hit the parapet walls, sending them crumbling to the ground below with a boom that echoes across campus. She nosedives, her body fighting for balance.

Chumana hovers mid-air, then flies.

I laugh, adrenaline pumping through my body as I watch the dragon shrink into the distance, the shape of her outlined by stars. How long has it been since she last flew? The thought sobers me.

I wipe my bloody hands on my trousers and ride the lift downstairs. I need to be back in Fitzrovia by dawn, but that leaves me enough time to see Chumana keep her side of the deal with my own eyes. Wyvernmire isn’t in her office, so she won’t be harmed. Then, with the evidence of my family’s crimes destroyed, I’ll pick up Ursa from Sophie’s and wait for them all at home.

I hop back over the wall and walk through the darkness towards Westminster with a soaring heart.

*

By the time I turn on to Downing Street, rain is plummeting from the sky. I crouch in the shadows, keeping to the opposite side of the road as I watch the Guardians patrolling outside Number 10. Rain drips through my hair and down the back of my neck and I shiver. The sky is full of dark clouds. There is still no sign of Chumana.

She’s not coming.

I stare at the Guardians as rain pools in the grass beneath my shoes. I play with the frayed red string round my wrist, the friendship bracelet Sophie gave me, the one I’ve never been able to bring myself to cut off.

She lied.

I try to distract myself by guessing Chumana’s maxim. All dragons have one, a motto they choose for themselves, usually in Latin. A maxim is the one constant they live by. Ten minutes later, my clothes are soaked through and she still isn’t here. I sink back on my heels and let out a shaky breath. The sun will rise soon and the evidence of my family’s rebellion will be moved again, no doubt to somewhere more secure. I swallow a lump in my throat. I’ve spent the whole night out here for nothing. I can’t save them.

Movement catches my eye. A shadow is gliding through the night. Chumana flies silently over 10 Downing Street and back again, her huge body like a dark paper cutout against the sky. The Guardians continue their patrol, oblivious. Then flames bloom from the clouds. The left side of the building catches alight first and the Guardians jump back in alarm. As they shout for backup and reach for their weapons, Chumana sends more fire licking up the right side. I crouch lower behind the bushes as Guardians come running from several directions, firing shots into the air. Black smoke billows into the sky and the orange flames climb higher and higher, as if reaching for the rain. An alarm sounds and Chumana disappears.

There’s a crash as windowpanes burst and people begin rushing from the building. Somewhere far away, a fire engine wails. I once heard that Wyvernmire’s ancestors were hunters of wyverns. It’s said she has the wyvern heads mounted on her office walls, as a reminder of that dark time when dragons and humans preyed on each other mercilessly. I wonder if they’re burning, too. I cough as the smoke fills the bushes I’m hiding in.

Time to go.

Guardians and staff fill the street, fleeing the flames that are spreading at an alarming speed. I saw my fair share of dragonfire during the war, but I forgot how vicious it is.

Please don’t let anyone be hurt.

In any case, the incriminating papers have surely burned to ash. I stand up and back away—

A cold hand slides round my neck.

I try to shout as I’m dragged backwards, but my breath is crushed in my throat. Pain shoots down my arm as my fist connects with a hard Guardian helmet and the buildings around me seem to spin. The Guardian throws me into the back of a van.

‘You’re under arrest,’ he says as he cuffs my hands. ‘Anything you say from this moment forward could be used against you in court.’

No, no, no.

I’m kneeling in the dark and almost fall sideways as the van pulls away.

‘Under arrest on what charge?’ I gasp.

My wet clothes cling to my skin and my hair smells of dragonsmoke. The van turns sharply and the Guardian catches me as I lurch forward.

‘Vivien Featherswallow, you are under arrest for breaking the Peace Agreement.’